


Fissures

by shinaho



Category: Readyyy! Project (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study?, Isolation, injuries, just put random tags hope it sounds ok, light Violence, tje usual, you knoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 11:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17425319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinaho/pseuds/shinaho
Summary: Uta is cracked, broken, unlovable. Never to be touched or seen by human eyes.





	Fissures

**Author's Note:**

> PREFACE this was written before any real readypro lore is available (writing with no info.... my specialty) so if you’re reading this later and it’s like, totally batshit. this is our food as of this moment and i eat it

Everything stills. The ripples in the water fade and all that’s left is a glassy surface, as if when you touch it your hand won’t go through. Uta’s breathing is so shallow, so light that if one would look at him he would seem to be dead. The rise and fall of his frail chest is practically invisible. 

Frail. That’s what he is. Thin and small and fragile, and if you touch him he’ll break. It’s happened before, and Uta is determined to not let it happen again. 

He’s an idol. A fantasy, a projection of a real person. He’s meant to be perfect. A character, if you will, for adoration. He knew that when he began his career. Idols don’t accept mistakes. His hair needs to be perfectly soft, his eyes bright and colorful, his motions smooth and swift like the wind. Fans want to see his clear, soft skin. Porcelain without any chips. But he was cracked, and broken, a discarded teacup, a destroyed china plate. 

Uta reaches his hand up and around, and touches his back. He can feel the rough and scratchy skin that will never heal the same. He traces it, from the top, as it goes all the way down and around towards his stomach, where it ends in a jagged spike. His finger dances around the edges, feeling each individual bump. He can practically feel the stitches still, where each individual puncture once was. His body remembers it, of course, it’ll be written on his skin evermore. 

It limits his costume choice, his performances, his photoshoots. If he twists the wrong way he can feel the scarred skin stretch and ache unbearably, like it’s going to rip open for a second time. It’s not something that can be healed through creams and lotions, or covered with makeup and special effects. It’s a part of him, a puncture down to his very core. 

Uta rests his head against the ledge where the bathtub meets the wall and pulls his knees up to his chest. The water accommodates to his movements, cascading down his knees and once again creating a perfect glassy surface, reflecting his tormented face.

The single baths are across the way from the communal ones, and Uta can hear the chatting voices of his peers resound in the halls. They laugh and joke and talk like equals, like friends- something Uta has never bothered to have. He envies them. Their burdens are shed around each other, (maybe they never even existed in the first place), and they can be happy, be friendly, be free. 

Uta hears the changing room doors slam. The boys are still as rowdy and loud as before. “Ehehehe? Is that a new mole, Zen?” Someone asks playfully. Zen, presumably, replies, but it’s muffled and Uta can’t exactly make out what he says. The other boys proceed to laugh. 

Uta thinks he can hear Genshin amongst the crowd. Genshin has friends, of course. Uta knows this. He wouldn’t push him so hard that he doesn’t have free time (it would make his performances worse than they already are.) Seeing Genshin have friends.... live a life of happiness.... Uta feels bile rise in his throat.

Does he deserve happiness more than Uta? Is he better than Uta? Is that it? Is Uta inherently bad? Is that why these things happen to him? Is that it? Is that why Uta is unlovable now? Is that why Uta is damaged? No man will ever look at his body and say it’s beautiful. Genshin is perfect, and has flawless skin (Uta has seen it in the changing rooms- not a scar or blemish to be found) and is everything that Uta isn’t. He despises it. 

Uta still remembers the feeling of having his back and stomach cut open. It’s only moments like this, in the silence and isolation does he recall it. He was at Genshin’s house (it was during a break from school, and they needed to rehearse. Uta would never have cared to visit him otherwise.) He knew bits and pieces about Genshin’s personal life. It was natural, after all, since they spent so much time together, but never had he known Genshin kept.... eels, of all things, until a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom ended him in a room filled with decorative fish tanks homing different types of eels. 

Genshin had found him soon after (Uta spent minutes studying the strange things and he had gone looking for him) and, surprised Uta hadn’t fled in fear, began telling him about the different types. He had a few species, each kept in their own large tanks, with decorations that best fit their appearance. It was endearing, Uta would admit, but still, very, very strange. If he had time to coordinate all these one would think he would be able to attend practice more often. 

One of the tanks was broken, Uta noted. Upon asking Genshin he revealed, embarrassingly, that he had dropped it on accident because of the weight. He luckily hadn’t hurt himself, but it was unusable now and had to be taken to a special place to throw away because of the broken glass. 

Without giving the broken tank much thought, Genshin offered to let Uta pet one of his eels. Uta has dealt with his antics up until then, but there was a point that he wasn’t willing to cross, at least not that day. “No, no.” Uta said. “Let’s just get back to practice.” 

“Nonsense!” Genshin’s eyes were brighter than Uta had ever seen them, but he still couldn’t give in. Never, in his life would he want to touch something like that. 

“They’re cute, really!” Genshin quickly grabbed Uta’s wrist and pulled him up towards one of the tanks, probably to have Uta reach his hand in that retched, eel-shit-filled-water. Uta, whether it was out of fear, or annoyance, or plain shock, suddenly shrieked out, and used his free hand as leverage to push himself away from Genshin. But his grip was stronger than Uta had anticipated, and he quickly lost balance. 

He stumbled and fell back, and he knew he landed on the broken shards of glass. He knew it. In his head, in the small part of his head that knew what was happening, he knew it. But it didn’t feel real. Like a dream just before it ends, like his senses were fading to be replaced by the morning grog after sleep. But that wasn’t what was happening.

Uta pushed himself away from the counter, and turned back around to look at it. He had fallen on his back, and then twisted to the side, so there ended up being a large scrape across his back, as well as a smaller cut around his side leaning up to his stomach. Looking at the broken tank, Uta saw what he knew was his blood. Of course it was. Who else’s could it have been? The adrenaline, he assumed, numbed all the pain, turning him into a lethargic husk, with only the ability to stare at broken bloody glass. 

On the way to the hospital, in the ambulance with Genshin and a nurse, the pain finally started to register. It was unimaginable. Nowhere near the pulls muscles and sprained ankles he had suffered at dance class, nowhere even close. He thought he would die there. That his small little body wouldn’t be able to take it, that his career would be cut tragically short and he would die meaninglessly, without accomplishing anything. 

He was afraid. He looked at Genshin, who was crying, and apologizing, time and time again, but he sounded miles away. Uta just lolled his head back and looked up at the ceiling of the ambulance. He was afraid. Afraid of dying, of being hurt, of being imperfect. But he didn’t cry. Idols don’t cry. Idols are perfect. 

Uta wasn’t perfect. He isn’t perfect. He will never be perfect. As he sits in his single bath, with his eyes closed and his skin flushed from the hot water, he thinks of all the ways he isn’t perfect. If he were perfect, he could write lyrics, and perform as a solo artist, and become the person his mother wanted him to be. 

Why is Genshin blessed with the ability to write lyrics? Why is he blessed with friends? Why is he blessed with a happy life when Uta needs to suffer for what Genshin has done? Uta has none of these answers, only fury and hatred in his heart, only envy for what he could have been. 

No matter how hard he tries, Uta will never be able to write lyrics. The words never jump out at him, and he can never sit down to focus. With composition, he thinks of his mother’s smiling face at her piano, and all the joy he got from playing with her, and making music, but with lyrics, all he feels is the cold unfamiliarity of written words, of things he will never understand. 

Angels must be lonely, Uta thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> am i an uta kamijo apologist? Mayhaps. anyways if you stan uta and aren’t like. a freak message me on twitter @celesteluvmail


End file.
